Eckart Sager received €1,975,000 ($2,639,429) in an United Arab Emirates account from Hilux Services in 2014 for consulting services.
Sager, a former CNN producer who was born in Germany, is listed as a press contact for public relations articles that promote the Azerbaijani government’s views.
One of these articles voices Azerbaijan’s denials in the corruption case of Luca Volonte, an Italian parliamentarian facing charges for money laundering related to payment from Hilux and accused of undermining a Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) report condemning Azerbaijan’s human rights violations.
Sager previously ran into controversy when his TV production company, FBC, made documentaries for the BBC about Malaysia’s palm oil industry and the associated environmental and human rights issues while being paid by the Malaysian government. The Independent discovered that the Malaysian government had paid FBC nearly £6 million in 2009 for work on a “Global Strategic Communications Campaign.”
